What's even better than crawling?

Standing!

Monroe pulled herself up for the first time on Saturday--one week after she started crawling.  We thought we'd have a chance to get used to the crawling for awhile, but Monroe wants to do it all at once.  She has since been standing in her crib and pulling herself up on the chairs at Mikki's.  Now, we really need to baby-proof!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 Monroe crawled over to the Christmas tree immediately.  The next month could be fun.

The first snow...

and we're ready for it.

We have a crawler!

I guess Monroe wanted to crawl for the first time in front of family, because she waited for Thanksgiving weekend to do it.  My family members were all sitting around watching the kids play when she started crawling to get to a toy.  We all cheered, and she stopped to see what was going on.  It was a fun moment.

Here is the first video we took.

Thanksgiving

We spent the first two days of our Thanksgiving vacation with Zach's family.  We had a nice day relaxing on Wednesday with his siblings and parents.  On Thursday, the whole family came over for dinner and stayed most of the day. 

Family picture

Great Grandma and Monroe played piano together

On a whim, Derek, Emily, Dustin, Julie, Zach, and I went to Walmart at 11:00 Thursday night.  We thought it would be fun to see what Black Friday shopping is like.  One foot inside the doors, we were reminded of why we don't do the Black Friday thing.  It was crazy!

On Friday morning we got to North Platte in time for the first annual Iowa Nebraska game.  My family is from Iowa, so we are all Hawkeye fans.  We cheer for the Hawkeyes anytime they're not playing Nebraska.

That night, we went to the park to feed the animals.  Kaiya loved it.

Kaiya kept asking Lorenzo the Llama to come closer.

On Saturday my sister's family got to North Platte.  (She had been sick the day before.) We had Thanksgiving dinner and hung out.

Karter, Jensen, and Monroe

Seven Months

The little miss is seven months old.  Lately, she has been moving and talking non-stop.  She is not crawling yet, but she scoots backward and turns in circles to get what she wants.  She also reaches for our hands so she can pull herself up.  Squealing, spitting, grunting, fake laughing, and making other sounds is her favorite thing to do.  It is now only quiet at our house when she's sleeping, but it's so fun.

I made this onesie for Monroe.  I love how it turned out.

Seven month birthday

Monroe doesn't stay still long enough for me to get a picture of her anymore.  I have to take about twenty shots to get a couple good ones.

Mr. Fix it

Zach and I had needed a new front door for a long time.  The old one had a number of issues.  We had had one picked out for a few months, but we hadn't purchased it because we didn't know who was going to help Zach install it.  We finally borrowed a truck from some friends, and went and got it Thursday night.  We had no plans for installation, but we thought it would get done sooner if we just bought the door.  Friday morning Zach woke up, watched a video on You Tube, went down and got his tools, and set to work tearing out the old door.  A friend of ours came over for a few hours to help lift the door and fit it into place.  Other than that, Zach did the whole project on his own.  It looks awesome!  I am so proud of my handy man!

 Before

After

First Halloween

Monroe's first Halloween was a lot of fun.  We drove to Hastings to see Zach's family and a few friends.

  

Lil Strawberry

Photo shoot in the yard

 Great Grandma Dee

Great Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa 

Second cousin, Dedrick

During supper at Grandma and Grandpa's, I couldn't get the food in Monroe's mouth fast enough.  It was quite entertaining.

Goodnight, everyone.